Dido Hasper

Dido Hasper, longtime Executive Director of Women's Health Specialists, and founder of the Chico Feminist Women's Health Center, died unexpectedly on Thursday, July 15, 2004. Dido was born in Oakland, Calif. on April 13, 1948. She was active at an early age in civil rights and social justice issues. She moved to Chico in 1972 and got involved in local activism and politics working with the April Committee which elected the first slate of young, liberal candidates to the Chico City Council. Dido was best known as a tireless advocate for women's reproductive health rights ­ locally and nationally. In 1973, following the Roe v. Wade decision granting women the right to abortion, Dido joined with a group of eight other non-professional women and started, with the help of the Oakland Feminist Women's Health Center, the Chico Feminist Women's Health Center in February 1974 located in the former Enloe Hospital building on Wall Street. The Chico FWHC was the first provider of women's reproductive health care and the only provider of abortion services in the northstate for a decade. In 1983 the Chico clinic expanded to Redding and later opened up clinics in Sacramento and Santa Rosa. Under Dido's leadership, the clinics, now operating as Women's Health Specialists, expanded their scope of services over the years and now include a full spectrum of women's reproductive care including Adoption Choices and a program for the developmentally disabled called Living & Loving. Over the years Dido worked tirelessly for the rights of all women to control their own bodies and lives and traveled the globe promoting women's reproductive rights and empowerment. She received the Margaret Sanger Award for her significant contributions in the furtherance of women's abortion rights. In the 1980s she served as a member of the State of California Midwife Advisory Council that developed legislation aimed at legalizing lay midwives. She served as a member of the State of California Department of Consumer Affairs Colloquium to Redefine the Medical Practice Act. In 1992 Dido served as an Advisory Committee Member to the Little Hoover Commission's Review of the Discriminatory Medi-Cal Policies. She was also a member of the Women's Health Collaborative. Dido Hasper had a significant presence in the national fight to keep abortion legal and accessible and to preserve a woman's right to privacy. She was an active member of the National Abortion Federation and presented testimony to numerous state and national legislative bodies. Dido was an innovative thinker, a visionary, an activist and a leader. She was also an author and in the early 1980's took a year sabbatical from her position at the Chico FWHC and moved to Los Angeles to co-author a manuscript, Women's Health In Women's Hands which formed the foundation for three publications, A New View Of A Woman's Body, How To Stay Out of the Gynecologist's Office, and Woman-Centered Pregnancy and Childbirth. In 1999, Dido received the Women Helping Women award from the Soroptimist International of Chico and was recognized as one of the Twenty Who Made a Difference in Chico by the Chico News & Review. For all her many accomplishments, also her greatest joy in life was her role as a mom to her two children, Carmen Duckworth (24) and Joe Hasper (16). Her vast family of friends and colleagues will remember her most as a woman of great vision, great conviction, great courage and great heart. They will miss her sense of humor, her sense of fairness and her wisdom. Memorial services will be held at the Lakeside Pavilion at California Park, 2565 California Park Drive, Chico, 3 p.m. on Thursday, July 22. Dido's family and friends request contributions be made to the Hasper Children College fund at Butte Community Bank.